


Random not-connected people

by futureplans



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, post 3x08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:59:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24594913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futureplans/pseuds/futureplans
Summary: "So what do we do now?"For a while, there is only silence. She can hear the wind whistling through the phone. She can hear Oksana's breaths, a little short."I don't know. Nobody's ever turned before."
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 16
Kudos: 307





	1. Random not-connected people

They both turned. They both stand there, in the brightly-lit bridge, just close enough, just far enough. Neither of them moves.

Eve watches Oksana, wonders what she'll do. She doesn't know the next step of the plan.  _ In case of both parties being stubborn idiots... _ Does she turn on her heel again and leave? Can she?

Oksana's eyes are on hers with a new kind of intensity. Soft. Eve wants so desperately to know what happened. She wants to bridge the gap between them, right into Oksana's space, into the cloud of her scent, of her warmth. She stands there.

A hand reaches into the pocket of a mustard-yellow coat. She pulls out a phone, dials a number. Eve's bag begins ringing.

"Hello?"

She watches Oksana's lips move in time with the distorted words that sound by her ear. The nearby sound seems to be echoed by another, more distant, the original, but it might just be her imagination this far apart.

"You turned around. I told you not to do that."

"You turned too," she points out. Oksana smiles. She shifts in place to give herself something to do that isn't throwing herself in the arms of the woman she should avoid. "So what do we do now?"

For a while, there is only silence. She can hear the wind whistling through the phone. She can hear Oksana's breaths, a little short.

"I don't know. Nobody's ever turned before."

She doesn't respond. She doesn't know how to, except to say something crazy that she doesn't want to say quite yet, while they're still in this limbo, or to ask a question that she knows Oksana will ignore.

"It can be a symbolic turning," Oksana finally suggests. 

"Symbolic?"

"Yes, you know. You turned to acknowledge that we are connected in some unbreakable way and now you turn back around and leave."

"Wouldn't that break the connection?"

"No-" Oksana interrupts herself to groan at Eve, then carries on. "It's not affected by distance. It's an emotional bond, like fate, a soulmate thing."

"So I have to leave because we're soulmates. But if we were just random not-connected people, I could stay."

Some part of Eve knows she could simply hang up and walk over there. Maybe she's just stalling to build up the courage. One way or another, it's a decision. 

"But you don't want to stay."

"I turned."

"Because you can't resist the temptation, but you want to."

"Why are you trying so hard to get me to leave?"

"I'm scared." The words tumble out of her at once, and Eve sees her hand raise as if to cover her mouth, prevent more secret truths from escaping. "I'm ready for you to go now. But if you come back and then I do something- if I ruin your life or bring out your darkness, and  _ then _ you leave, that will be so much worse."

The full weight of indecision hits Eve like a bag of rocks. Suddenly her legs no longer pull her tirelessly to Oksana, but instead feel rooted to the very ground. 

She clings to the cool plastic in her hand, to its solid shape, it's comforting realness. 

"You called me." 

Oksana smiles. She's been caught. Her shoulders rise in a little shrug, and for that moment the coat seems to engulf her even more thoroughly than before. 

"I'm bad at doing the right thing." 

A man sidesteps Oksana on his way across the bridge and both women watch his path. He seems a little uncomfortable at the attention, looks around a few times like he's crashed some promotional shot and is looking for the cameras. 

Eve counts the steps he takes between Oksana and herself. One dozen, barely two dozen and he's in front of Eve, apparently debating some sort of apology or question. He shakes his head and walks off. 

He doesn't get it. He couldn't, even if he tried. Even if Eve spent all night explaining. There is so much history between the two of them, so much that has happened, that can't be taken back, that has changed them forever. If Eve runs, she'll never see Oksana again. She knows that. She can hide away from the world, dig inside for the pieces of herself she has thrown away, cling to the life that once must have made her happy. Must have been enough. 

She takes a step forward and it seems to break all the chains that were tying her feet down to the pavement. She just keeps walking. 

Three steps. "You know what?" Three more. "I have lost a husband." Another three. "A host of friends." She is halfway there now, right at the middle. "More jobs than I can count." Oksana watches her silently. "Two houses." The wind whips at her hair. "And my entire sense of identity." She's so close now, she can see the way Oksana's grip on the phone tightens. "Because of you." She comes to a stop. She can hear her own voice by Oksana's ear. "I think it's about time you make it up to me." 

Oksana doesn't speak. She doesn't pull her phone away, turn it off. She looks at Eve like she's trying to find something deep within her, answers to all the questions she could just ask. 

"... Does that mean you'll stay or not?" 

"I-" They're still on the phone, their voices distractingly duplicated. For a moment, Eve is just puzzled. She lets her arm drop and answers Oksana directly. "Stay, obviously. I walked back to you." 

"Well, that's vague. You could have just said you'll stay instead of making that really misleading speech." She puts away her own phone, shaking her head to herself. "Seriously, why does everybody always have to be so dramatic?"

"Asshole," Eve huffs out, but there's no bite to it, and her hand is already on Oksana's cheek, feeling her face tilt to lean into the warmth. 

They kiss. The moment seems suspended in time. Eve actually gets around to closing her eyes. Oksana's fingers have wrapped around her arm, as if keeping her in place. The gesture is awkward, tentative, just like back at the dance hall. Oksana, usually so fluid, becomes so mechanical and rigid when it comes to tenderness. When it comes to Eve. 

Eve thinks of the people passing by them, just living their lives. She wonders what they see. A nice, typical, interracial, same-gender, May-December couple out on a date? 

Okay, maybe not super typical. 

Whatever it is they imagine, pure romance or forbidden affair, first kiss or last or any of the millions in between, she doubts they'd imagine the truth. She isn't sure what the truth even is, or how she'd ever verbalize it. 

They pull apart. Eve doesn't have far to go because Oksana's hand on her arm is like a vice grip, keeping her firmly in place. She doesn't resist, just lets their foreheads rest together, feels Oksana's warm breath on her lips.

"Are you going to headbutt me now?"

She wasn't planning on it, but she can't deny that the prospect is quickly growing more appealing. 

"God, will nothing shut you up?"

They both step back, just enough that they can actually see each other's faces as they talk. Oksana's is, of course, a mask of innocence and legitimacy. 

"What? You run very hot and cold, I'm just making sure."

"Here's a tip: if you say something nice right after someone kisses you, it's more likely that they'll do it again."

"But then I wouldn't be the woman you fell for, would I?" Her smug grin withstands the full force of Eve's glare, but slowly softens to an apologetic smile. Eve likes this soft Oksana. She makes her think that they might actually have a chance at a future. "Thank you for kissing me without immediate threat of physical danger to either of us. It was nice."

"Thank you."

Oksana studies her very attentively and she realizes she's waiting to see whether she's going to get that second kiss Eve alluded to. Eve offers a knowing smirk instead, and she seems to conform herself to her fate. 

"I didn't really mind the headbutt, either," she comments with a shrug. 

"Okay, let's save the kink talk for later. Hey, are you hungry?"

"A little," Oksana says in a small voice, still not quite used to asking for things. 

"Will you still eat anything?" She studies the streets around them, placing herself. By her side, Oksana offers a nod. "Then let's go, I know a good kebab place nearby."

She turns away and reaches out her hand. After a moment where she only studies it, Oksana takes it, fingers curled around Eve's like she's not quite familiar with the gesture yet. 

They walk. Stepping across the last few metres of the bridge and on to the street beyond, they walk away together. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It didn't even cross my mind that they could just wave at each other and then walk off again, until Jodie brought it up in that interview. So in honor of the least heartbreaking finale so far, here's to hoping they'll just go for kebabs instead
> 
> Come check me out on twitter @evesaxe ^^


	2. You Googled me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Villanelle’s face lights up. Eve hates this. Stupid, adorable, smiling Villanelle.
> 
> “You have a mother!”
> 
> Oh God.
> 
> “Is she not in Korea?”
> 
> “She’s in Kent.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess this has become a collection of post-s3 drabbles now ^^ This chapter brought to you by my desire to explore Eve's past life a little bit.
> 
> There are some korean words, but nothing essential to the story. Either way, I put romanization and translation for them in hover text.

They go back to the tiny New Malden flat and have about two days of peace before they are awoken by an intruder. Villanelle pins him against the kitchen counters and then Eve opens the windows and just… tips him over.

They realize, some time after Eve has confirmed that he is splattered on the pavement below and not going anywhere, that he might have just been some robber. It’s not the best neighbourhood.

After that, they have a few weeks of skipping between safe houses, helpfully provided by Carolyn. Eve wanted to say no, because she trusts the woman even less now than she did before, which for a while she didn’t think possible, but Villanelle has had a lot of experience with betrayal and is more willing to forgive and forget in the name of staying alive.

Most of the places are bare bones, peeling wallpaper and unhygienic bathrooms and kitchen cupboards with all the doors falling off. Some are about on par with the old flat. Villanelle adapts pretty well, which is vaguely annoying, because Eve was hoping to at least get to be the reasonable one that accepts the situation and doesn’t complain.

Instead, she makes sandwiches with a rusty knife and sighs deeply at their predicament, while Villanelle sits quietly and happily at their greasy dinner table, reading one of her textbooks.

How did she even get them? Eve has been asking for a pencil and notebook for ages and nobody will listen to her.

Everyone has plans for what they can do next. Most of them are terrible. All of them involve being ready to leave the country at a moment’s notice.

And in these, possibly their last ever moments in England, which are being spent in the worst living conditions of Eve’s life, with no outside contact or source of entertainment and in the weirdest relationship limbo with Villanelle – they’ve done nothing, discussed nothing, established nothing -, Eve finds herself growing sentimental.

She’s spent the past year or so breaking away from everyone and everything in her life, but now that she’s going to finally be done with the job, she wishes she had something. Some reminder that it wasn’t all a dream.

Her future is Villanelle, because apparently she is _insane_ , but her past now lives entirely in her mind and she isn’t sure how much she trusts that. If only she had a notebook and a pencil, _like she asked for a million times_ , to write down her past life while it’s still fresh.

“Eve, I have a question!”

This again. She shouldn’t be holding a knife for this. Even an old rusty one. Villanelle remains at the table, her hand up in the air like she’s in class. When Eve doesn’t respond, she gets up with a loud scraping of her chair and skips over.

“Eve, what is the difference between 전혀 and 결코? I assume that they are different facets of-”

“Villanelle, for the last time, you don’t need to learn Korean, because we are not going to ‘stay with my family in Korea.’” That’s Villanelle’s most repeated suggestion for what to do next. It’s one of the terrible ones.

A pause. Villanelle blinks at her like she is processing the words.

“Right, but can you just use them in a sentence?”

“I don’t even _have_ family in Korea, aside from some distant cousins,” she lifts a hand to block the barrage of demands she knows will be coming, “but I am absolutely not bothering them with this. It’s beyond rude to abuse family relations like that. I’d never hear the end of it from my mother.”

Villanelle’s face lights up. Eve hates this. Stupid, adorable, smiling Villanelle.

“You have a mother!”

Oh God.

“Is she not in Korea?”

“She’s in Kent.”

Eve thinks longingly back to her relationship with Niko, where on all but the worst days she could shut him up with a few kisses and suggestively-phrased promises. With Villanelle, not only is she not sure whether they’re at that place, she doesn’t even know if it would work. The woman is very single-minded.

“Let’s visit her!”

“Why? We can’t stay with her, either way.”

“But Eve, it’s your mother. You might never see her again, don’t you want closure?”

It took a long time for Eve to get the story of Villanelle’s family out of her. At first, she just closed up, her eyes went all unfocused and her head lulled back and forth. Eventually, the words started coming out, in incoherent bursts. When Eve pieced everything together, a part of her wished she hadn’t.

Villanelle’s closure changed her. Made her the kind of person who probably wishes she’d gotten her closure in a different form. Can she be projecting? That would be good. Empathy is good.

“Never seeing my mother again _is_ the closure.”

Villanelle isn’t phased. Maybe this isn’t empathy and she’s just looking for the right angle to get her way. That would be very her.

“What about seeing your childhood home?”

“She moved after my parents separated.”

Villanelle squints, looks ready to embark on less convincing arguments. “Seeing what the new home looks like?”

They have a short staring contest, like Villanelle’s suggestion will somehow become irresistible if Eve just sits on it long enough.

“I’d like to go back to my sandwich now.”

Villanelle’s shoulders slump, just a little. Out here there’s no makeup, or hairdressers, or access to their own clothes, so now she is permanently bare-faced, her hair is slowly darkening at the roots and she is wearing a novelty “Bazinga” t-shirt that makes Eve want to kill herself a little bit every time she sees it.

She looks stupidly adorable. Eve wants to kiss that stupid fake pout right off of her face. She turns back to her sandwich.

“You can make amends.”

Eve hums, attention on the tuna spread. Villanelle squeezes closer to her, leans her chin on her shoulder, like she can overwhelm Eve with sheer proximity.

“She can make amends.”

That one just gets a snort. Eve pokes out her elbow to shake free the arm that Villanelle is taking hostage.

“She cares in her own way.” Villanelle’s voice is oddly quiet, all of a sudden. “Most mothers do, right? She probably kept all your baby scribbles and your school reports and she has a photo of you on the mantle. Next to all the other people she cares about.”

She goes quiet, still only a few inches away. Eve turns around in the little space that Villanelle has given her and reaches out awkwardly. Should they… hug? Is this a hugging moment? Her fingers latch around Villanelle’s wrists and they look at each other wordlessly for a moment.

They are _so_ bad at intimacy.

“Have I convinced you?”

“No,” Eve snaps out at the shift of mood and lets go of Villanelle abruptly.

She is not about to break the family’s mutually-decided radio silence, which they have happily kept up for over a decade, so she can look at school reports and… mantle… photos.

Photos.

Home has been sold, storage has been scrubbed, New Malden is off limits, her phone and laptop are distant memories. All the proof that she has ever had a past now lives in her mother’s home, doesn’t it?

Or Niko’s, she supposes, but he’s probably burned it all down by now. And she has no idea where he’s living. And he probably wouldn’t let her in even if she did.

“Maybe,” she corrects herself. She feels a flurry of motion from behind her that she assumes is Villanelle performing some sort of victory dance. “But you are _not_ coming.” The victory dance stops.

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re-”

(…)

They stand in front of a door Eve hasn’t seen in a very long time.

Villanelle has done her best to dress up despite their relative lack of options. She has gone for an ensemble of sober, neutral colours, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that she’s in knee-length shorts, a blouse that is just a little too loose and a wool coat.

In the absence of the _only_ blouse they have, Eve has had to make do with a thick flannel shirt that makes her look like she’s dating a lumberjack, paired with ripped jeans.

At least she doesn’t look ‘any worse than usual’, as Villanelle has helpfully informed her.

She wasn’t going to bring her, she really wasn’t, but Villanelle is the only one who can figure out where they are every time they move, and she’s much better at subduing their guards. Eve was the one who took their wallets so they could afford bus tickets, though. She guesses that makes her the responsible one. Relatively speaking.

Her hand hovers over the doorbell. She reviews the plan, which can barely be called a plan and just consists of bullshitting her way into the spare room so she can hopefully find an old photo to take with her.

She informed Villanelle of the plan, but she just nodded solemnly, and Eve can already imagine how much trouble she is going to be.

“Are you going to ring it?” Villanelle suddenly asks, causing Eve to jump and nearly push the button by accident. “I’m just saying, we don’t have all the time in the world. Those guards will be waking up and also the Twelve are after us.”

“I need some time, did _you_ just barge into your mother’s place?”

“Yes,” Villanelle replies without hesitation. Ugh. Fine, whatever.

Eve rings the bell. She waits one second, two. If nobody’s home, maybe they can just pick the lock, sneak inside-

“Eve.” There she is, a little older but just the same, watching Eve with the same tight-lipped smile. One syllable in and there already seems to be disappointment hanging in the air.

“어머니,” the usual greeting escapes her before she can adjust. Her mother sends a disapproving glance between her and Villanelle. _It’s rude to use Korean in front of the guests_. Oh, but Villanelle already knows Korean, she’s been learning it for _weeks_. It’s too much trouble to explain, so Eve drops it.

“Hello,” Villanelle cuts in, waving her hand. She hasn’t gone for an accent, just her own authentic self. “I am Villanelle. It is lovely to meet you.”

“Sophia. A pleasure, I’m sure.” She looks between them again and, as Eve offers nothing, slowly steps back. “Would you like to come in?”

The parlour sofa is as unyielding as Eve remembers, from her previous very brief visit. This now marks the second time she’s been at the house. Hooray. She sits uncomfortably, back very straight, and becomes painfully aware of her outfit once again as her mother studies it. She hates this already.

“I wanted to-” She cuts herself off abruptly, clenches her hands together in her lap. Polite first, demands later. “How is everything? With you and auntie and… everyone?”

“Wonderful, thank you for asking. And with yourself and…” Mother pauses, casts about for someone to tack on to that sentence, her eyes flitting over Villanelle like she is the only presence she can be sure of in Eve’s life. “Niko?”

“He’s well. As am I. We’re both well, separately.”

“Ah, yes. I received the notice.” Niko insisted on sharing the news of the divorce with Eve’s side of the family, because he didn’t want to be complicit with any more lies. Which really isn’t making this any easier. “Unfortunate. But you say you’re well?”

“Yes, definitely. Definitely well.”

“All is well,” Villanelle adds, her cheerful tone sounding extremely ominous.

“And you’re not having any… financial troubles? On your own?” Eve feels another wave of discomfort as her clothes are once again scrutinized. She probably looks homeless, or like she’s living off charity.

“No, definitely not. I am financially stable. All the way. Just… forgot to do laundry, you know how I get when I’m focused.”

“So you’re still working at… Where was it?”

“MI5. Yes. Yes, I am.”

Villanelle coughs into her fist, too loud for either of them to ignore, then offers Eve a dazzling smile as she alternates her gaze between mother and daughter.

“So, Mother, I came here today-” Another cough. “ _we_ came here today, because I think I’ve misplaced some documents. I was sure I had them with me, at the old house, but I’ve looked everywhere. I was hoping to have a quick-”

“Eve, aren’t you going to introduce me?”

She pauses, clenches her hands together a little tighter. She is very on edge and they have limited time, as Villanelle herself mentioned, and this does not help.

“You already introduced yourself.”

“I was forced to, rudely, because you did not,” Villanelle berates. Mother observes the exchange without intervening.

“Fine. Mother, this is Villanelle. Villanelle, this is my mother.”

“That is an interesting name. Where are you from?”

Villanelle ponders the question for a moment. “Russia.” Oh God, is a couple of photos really worth this?

Mother doesn’t address the incongruence. “And you’re here because…”

“Eve did not want to come alone.”

That one brings Mother’s disapproval back to the forefront. Wonderful.

“It’s a long drive out here. Just wanted someone to keep me company on the way. I told Villanelle she could wait for me at the coffee shop near where we parked,” she adds. _See? She isn’t a human shield,_ she hopes to communicate. _She’s the one who latched on to me, not the other way around._

“I couldn’t miss a chance to meet Eve’s mother,” Villanelle cuts in charmingly. Mother’s brows knit together. Oh, no.

“And you two- you’re-”

“I’m her girlf-” Villanelle begins.

“Colleague,” Eve cuts in loudly as soon as she parses the word, hopefully drowning it out. “My colleague from work.”

“From MI5,” Mother recalls. They nod. “I thought you were Russian.”

“Dual nationality,” Eve says quickly. Villanelle does not corroborate, an eyebrow arched petulantly as she leaves Eve to wade out of this one on her own.

Mother offers no more questions. They watch each other silently, awkwardly, until Eve feels like her tense nerves are ready to snap. Mother gets up.

“Shall I make some tea?”

“Oh, lovely!” Villanelle exclaims. Mother nods and is off.

“What are you doing?” Eve immediately asks, voice as hushed as she can make it. Villanelle turns to her with an expression of pure innocence. “Do _not_ out me to my mother, we are not even girlfriends.”

“What do you mean?” Villanelle’s face morphs into confusion. Is she being genuine? This fake emotions thing is so exhausting sometimes.

“We never talked about this. We never defined it. So you’re not-”

“You don’t want to be my girlfriend?”

The impulse to smack Villanelle grows and boy, life would be so much easier if this was how she felt all the way, instead of all those pesky fluttering feelings and urges to kiss her at inopportune moments.

“That’s not the point. The point is you never asked.”

Villanelle shrugs. “We had that lovely moment at the bridge.”

“We haven’t even kissed once since then.”

“I’m taking it slow!” Villanelle’s voice goes a little louder at the end and Eve immediately smacks her arm, gestures her into silence. “It’s your first time with a woman,” she adds in a sullen whisper.

What?

“No, it isn’t.”

Villanelle looks so offended it’s almost funny. “You said you’ve never done this before.” She stops, gasps. “Did you mean the stabbing?”

“I meant with a murderer.”

“Oh,” she drags out for a while. “You could have cleared that up before now.”

She has to focus on the photos. Her whole past is in those photos. If she can just hold on a little longer…

“Can we discuss this later?”

“Now who is avoiding the subject?”

“So you admit that you were avoiding it?”

“I was taking it slow!”

The door to the kitchen opens once more and they both jump into the most compromising silence Eve has ever experienced. When Mother sets the tray on the low table between them, the muffled sound echoes like a clatter around the utter lack of conversation filling the room.

“Eve.” Mother hands over her designated cup. “Simple, like you prefer.” What she prefers is coffee, but she takes a sip anyway.

“And Villanelle? Do you take sugar? Milk?”

“Simple is fine, thank you.”

The door to the kitchen didn’t close all the way and Eve sees it slide open as a small black thing makes its way to the parlour. Mother seems unaware until it slips closer and meows plaintively. She jumps in her chair, a hand landing on her chest.

“깜짝이야!” she calls out before she can stop herself. Eve refrains from smirking at the outburst. _Now who’s using Korean in front of the guest?_

“You got a new cat?” Eve asks conversationally. The cat doesn’t approach them, even when she stretches out her hand for a sniff.

“A few years ago.” Subtle dig. Eve ignores it.

“What is its name?” Villanelle pipes up. She’s a little closer to it, but hasn’t reached out.

“후추.”

“Hah!” Villanelle exclaims happily. “Pepper! Because it is black!”

Mother exchanges a glance with Eve while Villanelle, apparently more attached to the cat now that she knows its name contains a pun, stretches her arm far too close to its personal bubble. It hisses and runs off back to the kitchen. Eve does her best to smother her amusement at Villanelle’s sullen crossing of arms.

“Villanelle, you speak Korean?”

Eve shuffles through her options as quickly as she can. Villanelle is a polyglot MI6 agent? No, they wouldn’t let her reveal that anyway. Villanelle works as a translator? They’d probably just go with a native. Villanelle-

“Yes! I have been studying it lately. The classifier system is very confusing.”

“So this is a recent interest?”

New mission! Got a hobby! Started-

“Well, Eve speaks it.”

When she was a kid, Eve used to watch all these cartoons with smoke bombs. The characters would throw one and disappear in the puff of smoke that followed. She always used to wonder if that would actually work in real life.

Right now, she really wishes it would. Poof, and away she goes, free of the discussion that she knows is about to begin.

“Eve,” her mother begins slowly. God. Just whip it out of some pocket and poof. That would be the dream. “Did you come here just to come out to me with your new girlfriend?”

Villanelle’s face shifts into the worst attempt at pretending she isn’t happy with the way things are going that Eve has ever witnessed from her. Come on, you are a genius of manipulation. At least try not to make it obvious.

“She is not. My girlfriend,” Eve enunciates slowly, the words clipped as they escape her clenched jaw.

“On a technicality!” Villanelle is the worst. Eve should never have turned back at the bridge. The Twelve would probably leave her alone if she wasn’t with Villanelle, right? Probably. “The feelings are there!”

Eve tries her best to politely ignore everything people have said around her in the past minutes. She plasters a very fake smile on her face and tries her best non-confrontational voice.

“I’m here for some documents that I can’t-”

“If I ask, she will say yes,” Villanelle cuts in.

“Do you want to test that?” she deadpans with the very last shreds of patience she has.

Villanelle studies her face for a moment, as if reassessing the situation. She straightens up in her seat, settles her hands on her lap, and turns back to Mother.

“We are here for some documents,” she corroborates pleasantly, then reaches for her cup of tea.

(...)

Mother has left them alone in the spare room, probably because she didn’t want to pursue the topic of her daughter’s coming out and her odd choice of partner for much longer.

Not that Villanelle is actually her partner. She hasn’t asked. And that stupid taking it slow excuse isn’t going to stick either, Eve knows very well how far Villanelle was willing to go back at her Paris apartment, so why think she’s shy now?

“I can’t believe you came all this way for a photograph,” Villanelle comments lazily, sitting on the only chair and not helping in the least. “If you wanted to remember Niko’s face, you could just Google it. When we have Internet again,” she concedes.

Eve is on the ground, sitting in front of a disorganized pile of photos and trying to find the two or three she’ll take away. “Niko doesn’t even have Facebook. He isn’t big on Internet presence.”

“There’s the picture from the bridge tournament.”

As a seasoned killer lacking entirely in social restraint, Villanelle isn’t usually the type to freeze up. Which makes it extra amusing when it does happen. Like now.

“How do you know about that?” Eve asks, amusement creeping into her voice.

“Why wouldn’t I know?”

“You Googled me,” Eve teases, finger poking into Villanelle’s leg.

“Yes, well, your whole job was to Google me. But in real life.”

“Meaning I was paid for it. But _you_ did it for _free_.”

Villanelle frowns, trying to squirm away from Eve’s poking.”I don’t like it when you’re smug.”

“Nobody does. But that has never stopped me before.”

Hands that have probably throttled quite a few people spend a few moments smacking away ineffectually at Eve’s finger, then Villanelle slips down from her chair into the ground next to Eve.

“If I help you, will this go by faster?”

“Sure. I want one of me, one of Niko and one of my parents.” She shoves a pile in Villanelle’s direction. “Pick the me you like, I’ll take care of the rest.”

Eve returns her attention to her search, but it doesn’t last long, because Villanelle is just doing nothing. Just sitting there with her hand on Eve’s leg.

“Villanelle, you-”

“I picked. The you I like.” She tilts her head, like an adorable puppy. “It’s you.”

“That’s cute.” It’s really cute. It’s unfair how cute it is. Villanelle should have saved the cheesy cuteness for when they were back at the safe house, with all the time in the world to bask in it. “But I still need to-”

A hand on her cheek cuts her off, fingers delicately following the line of her jaw and curling behind her ear. After the hand comes Villanelle, leaning in closer, very slowly, until her breaths hit Eve’s lips. She doesn’t smell like Villanelle any more, because something else you don’t get in the safe house is your own expensive, one-of-a-kind perfume. She just smells like the same soap and shampoo as Eve, but somehow on her the scent is intoxicating.

Their lips brush, then press together. Eve lets Villanelle set the pace of the kiss, which is excruciatingly slow. She’s barely breathing, her thoughts scattered, her heart beating to the pace of their lips.

Then Villanelle is pulling back, just as out of breath as Eve. She looks distracted, for a moment, before her eyes come back into focus.

“I’m sorry I didn’t kiss you before,” she mumbles, the words barely leaving her. Eve nuzzles against her hand, hoping the contact is reassuring. “I think I was not taking it slow for you. It might have been just for me.”

“Oh.”

“I’m not used to feeling like this. Any of it. I’m trying to be… _chill_ about it.” She shimmies a little as she says the word, which is un-chill enough by itself but becomes exponentially more so with the added action. “But I’m maybe not doing a very good job.”

Eve doesn’t know what to say. She wishes she was better at the touchy-feely thing.

“You slaughtered four people after catching a single glimpse of my hair. I don’t think you’ve ever been chill.”

For a moment, Villanelle doesn’t react. Then she snorts with amusement. Eve is so glad her bizarre sense of humour helps in these moments, because she isn’t sure she could turn it off.

“That is fair.”

“Slow is fine,” Eve adds, a little softer. “I’m okay with slow. As long as I know what’s happening, we can be… whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“Eve?”

“Yes?”

“If I ask, you _will_ say yes, right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

Villanelle leans back and shifts her attention to the stack of photos, picking up the first to inspect it. Eve remains frozen for a moment more, dazed by the sudden change of mood. She looks at Villanelle, whose attention remains fully on the photos.

“Good to know,” Villanelle adds with a smirk. Asshole.

“It’s a maybe now.”

“No, it isn’t.”

She sighs. “No, it isn’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't make any promises but also there might be more bits added to this later eheh
> 
> Come check me out on twitter @evesaxe!


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